GS III
Context: Spearheaded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in partnership with Indonesia, MAC was launched at the COP27 Summit in Egypt to scale up and accelerate the conservation and restoration of the mangrove forests.
•India along with Australia, Japan, Spain and Sri Lanka have joined it as partners.
Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangrove trees cannot withstand freezing temperatures.
Mangroves in India: Mangrove cover in India is about 0.15% of the total geographical areas. (West Bengal> Gujarat> Andaman and Nicobar Islands). Largest mangrove forest in India is Sundarbans (UNESCO world heritage site) followed by Bhitarkanika (Odisha).
